


In Pursuit

by Lariope



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: snuna_exchange, F/M, Post - Deathly Hallows, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-29
Updated: 2009-05-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 07:06:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lariope/pseuds/Lariope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Luna Lovegood turns up Obliviated on Snape's doorstep, they must work out together what her presence in his life means.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Pursuit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [msavi](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=msavi).



> Written for the 2009 Snuna_Exchange on Livejournal for Msavi. Here is the original prompt: Snape is awoken late one night to discover that an unconcious, poisoned (or drugged) Luna Lovegood has been dumped at his front door. Who has poison/drugged her, with what, and why? Snape's interest develops from a grudging sense of duty, to reluctant curiosity, to something more.
> 
> Thanks, always, to my beta, OpalJade for insights and encouragement.

Snape had been lying fitfully for hours, drifting in and out of sleep. His contact at the Ministry had not checked in with him that night, and he could not decide if that boded well or ill. For over a year now, the face had appeared promptly at nine o’clock in his secure Floo connection, ostensibly to hear his daily reports on his pursuit of the Death Eaters still at large, but truly, Snape felt, to see that he remained where he was supposed to be—in seclusion in Spinner’s End.

It was a constant source of irritation, the nightly check, and yet it was part of the routine, and much as he was loathe to admit it, there was a part of him that had come to rely on it, to expect those few moments of almost social contact. It reminded him, in a way, of the Order meetings he’d been forced to attend during the war years. They had been tedious at best and downright demeaning at worst, but they were the only hours in which he wore a bit of his own skin, his own allegiance, and he could remember what he was doing and why.

His work for the Ministry, now, in peacetime, was hardly so lofty, but still—he was allowed to pretend that his work was valuable, and that at least one person on the inside knew that he… still worked for the right side. Perhaps the lack of a check tonight proved that they had come to rely on him. Snape drifted off again, chastising himself inwardly. What did he think, that the entire world outside had suffered some sort of calamity simply because no one had made sure that Severus Snape was where he belonged?

***

Snape’s eyes opened in the dark. He was not certain that he had been asleep, and yet this felt different than the half-dreams and murky consciousness of the last several hours. He lay motionless, waiting, not knowing yet what had disturbed him, but flooded with a feeling of certainty that someone was there. Painfully slowly, the fingers of his right hand traveled over the sheet to reach for his wand. His ears strained against the silence until his own breath was deafening, and the sound of his heart was only partially obscured by the rasp of callused fingers against cotton.

 _Shuffle. Bump._

The noise came from the front garden.

 _Accio._ Wand met hand, and Snape slid out from between the sheets, rolling his weight soundlessly onto the wooden floor. Careful, measured steps and a bone deep knowledge of the room—every creaking floorboard, every shadow—carried him from second story to first. In the hallway, he froze, head cocked toward the scritching sound just outside the front door.

 _Thump. Pop._

Apparition. Snape threw the door open with his left hand, thrusting his wand hand forward into the night, already knowing that he was too late. As the chill air met his skin, he looked down.

And saw the crumpled body of Luna Lovegood.

***

His first disjointed thought, before he had even raised his wand to summon the parchment affixed to her shoulder, was that she looked like a small white bird, asleep with her head beneath her wing.

“Goddammit,” he said under his breath.

The parchment flew into his hand, and even if he had not recognized the sharp, slanted script, he would have known the ink, which he had concocted himself for Draco’s eighteenth birthday.

 _I didn’t know where else to take her. Please help. I didn’t mean for this to happen._

The note crumbled into fine dust and scattered as soon as his eyes had finished traveling over the words. A trick of the Dark Lord’s, and one that, were this any normal circumstance, he would be adding to his file on Draco Malfoy—Draco Malfoy, one of only a handful of people to know the secret of Spinner’s End, including his Ministry contact, who was currently lying unconscious on the doorstep.

***

Snape settled her gently onto his couch, carefully pulling her silvery robes over her knees. She turned her head and opened her eyes at his touch, blinked twice and said mildly, “Oh, good. I made it home,” before sinking once more into oblivion.

And oblivion was the exactly the thing, if he wasn’t mistaken. Cursory diagnostic spells had revealed nothing—not even so much as a Jelly-Legs Jinx. His guess, if he were to make one, was that Luna Lovegood had been Obliviated.

Snape sank into a chair to watch his charge. If it were indeed Obliviation, he wouldn’t know it for certain until she woke. His spells ran a deep and roiling purple around her head, but until he could speak to her and hear her replies… Right now, he imagined the quicksilver of her thoughts darting madly about like a frightened hare, forging and breaking connections as it searched for the well-worn paths. Obliviation was a fine trick to undo, delicate and strange, and he dreaded and hoped for her consciousness in equal measure. What’s she’d said about _home_ troubled his mind. He’d thought her to be nearly immune to the Memory Modifying Charms, which led him to believe that when a simple Obliviate hadn’t proved effective, she’d been hit repeatedly—with ever increasing force. Until she’d spoken, he’d been filled with the unnamed fear that she wouldn’t know him, that she would see only a Death Eater and assume that he had done this to her. And yet, her comfort, her belief that she was _home_ unsettled him further. It would be a terrible loss if she were damaged.

Not that Obliviation was uncommon in their line of work. Luna Lovegood had come to him fresh from her final year at Hogwarts, her Ministry badge bright upon her robes. She’d stridden up the walk as if she hadn’t just bypassed one of the wizarding world’s most rigorous protective charms, as if, in fact, she hadn’t noticed the Fidelius Charm at all.

“Professor Snape,” she’d said, as he’d sputtered about breaches of privacy and Secret Keepers. “I want you to come to work for me.”

She’d stood her ground through his numerous and vehement protests, including the fact that he had no intention of working for a former student nearly half his age, and not the least of which was that no court would accept his testimony anyway.

“Oh, I don’t expect anyone to believe you,” she’d said. And then, as if she’d realized she’d been insensitive, “Nor me, either, if it comes to that. Harry and Ron are in the Auror Department. We’ll just pass what we know on to them.”

“So that they can take credit for our work?”

“You refused to attend the Ministry’s Post War Memorial,” she said affably. “Not that I blame you—the drinks were horrid, and Kingsley went on as if he’d been infested with Nargles—but they said some rather nice things about you.”

“Which, of course, is why I am confined to my home for the indeterminate future—” he began nastily.

“So I figured you weren’t interested in the recognition. And Harry told me you were here for your own protection. Is that not true?”

“I am here because the Ministry deems it appropriate to monitor my whereabouts—and while we’re on the subject of the Ministry, Miss Lovegood, I was of the impression,” he’d said, jabbing a bony finger at the copper badge on her robes, “that you worked for the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.”

“Cryptozoology Department,” she’d agreed.

“I am not certain that I see how that makes the capture of former Death Eaters a concern of yours.”

“Isn’t it a concern of yours? After all, I’m sure they’d like to do more than wish you a good morning.”

“Which is precisely why I agreed to the Ministry’s ridiculous restrictions of my—” Snape had stopped in mid-sentence and decided to change tactics. He’d drawn himself up to his full height and took a step forward, hoping she’d imagine billowing black teacher’s robes where there were none—in fact, he was furious that she’d caught him in a blue striped pair of pajamas. “What would your higher-ups think if they discovered that you were using their time and money to pursue Dark Wizards instead of discovering new magical creatures?”

Her posture had relaxed then, as if she’d become convinced she’d won. “Oh, Professor Snape,” she’d said. “As if they’d believe in anything I found, anyway.”

***

Perhaps he’d agreed because he’d heard in her statement the admission that they’d shunted her off to a forgotten (and ridiculed) corner of the Ministry—it wouldn’t do, of course, not to offer some official position to a war hero, if they indeed thought of her as a war hero at all—or perhaps it was because she always made him feel distinctly left-footed, as though he’d come off worst in an argument.

In any case, she’d arranged to take over the Ministry’s daily house checks (through what means, he knew not, though he doubted anyone had put up much of a fight), and it was then that he would offer her what he knew.

Since then, he had spent his days compiling notes on what he knew of the other Death Eaters: their jobs, their families, the locations of their homes. What they ate and did not eat. Specialty curses, weaknesses, affinities. He had been particularly proud when Antonin Dolohov was found in Muggle sweetshop, wearing an inexpertly applied glamour. Potter had followed him out the back door and hit him with the Impediment Curse, to which Snape had reported that Dolohov was particularly susceptible. He had discovered Dolohov’s weakness during his early years with Voldemort, years in which the Dark Lord’s rise had seemed inevitable, and the Death Eaters had not spent their days in battle, but in entertainment and the kinds of jokes that boys indulged themselves in when grouped together and bored. For they had mostly been boys then, fresh from Hogwarts and common room pranks, and he had seen Dolohov struggle mightily against _Impedimenta_ countless times as Avery and Rosier had crowed with laughter and, more often than not, taken whatever it had been that Doholov had wanted, be it drink, female, or power.

Although perhaps his pride was misplaced. Dolohov had hardly been deeply disguised, and a number of wizards, the late Headmaster included, had indulged in a fondness for Muggle sweets. And it was not as if _Impedimenta_ were a terribly uncommon curse, particularly in the Aurory. In fact, Snape knew nothing of what happened to his information once he pushed it through the Floo to Miss Lovegood. She might incinerate it on sight for all that he knew.

He had never managed to extract an answer from the elusive girl on the sofa as to exactly why she wished to pursue dark wizards, or why, if that were the case, she had not gone into Aurory herself. Perhaps she had been unable to pass the tests, though that seemed unlikely; the girl was a Ravenclaw, after all, and surely Potter could have had it arranged. Even her eyes had revealed nothing of her intentions, and Legilimency had granted him nothing, though he had tried it on several occasions. Sometimes, when he was maudlin or unable to sleep, he fancied that the Lovegood girl’s mind was impenetrable by curse or spell, that for all he had tried to teach his students to guard their thoughts, he had finally met someone whom he would never understand.

***

After several hours during which Miss Lovegood had done naught but provide a rather comprehensive array of facial expressions, Snape felt secure in leaving her alone long enough to survey his stores. There was little that would be of use to him there—she had no wounds to be healed, no flesh to soothe with the unguents he had prepared, and he was frustrated by how little there was to _do_. He was a man who was methodical during crisis; he formed plans and took steps, and he did not like the uncertainty and interminable waiting of situation before him. Either Lovegood would be all right or she would not, but he needed something to do in the meantime. _Please help_ , Draco’s note had said, and Snape felt charged with its message, though there was little to be done.

What he longed to do was to call on Draco at the Manor and demand to know what had been done to her and why, and he was furious with the boy for involving him and then stranding him here alone without information. The fact that this had almost certainly been Malfoy’s intention did nothing for his mood. Draco Malfoy, like Lovegood, had proven himself, after the fall of the Dark Lord, to be most difficult to unravel, and it infuriated him when he realized that he could not be entirely objective about the boy.

Snape had compiled a file on Draco, as he had for every man or woman who had taken the Dark Mark, but until the night before, he had found himself unable to hand it over to the Ministry. Partly, Snape thought, it was his age, though he knew that Draco was long past old enough to be responsible for his actions. And yet… he thought again of those boys he had known long ago, cursing each other and laughing… what had they known, really, of Dark power? Had he not witnessed Wilkes retching painfully in the alley after he’d learned for the first time what would be required of him? And Draco had been charged with more than the quick and painless murder of Muggle strangers. His own mother and father had hung in the balance of an impossible task…

Sympathy. Blast it all, if truth be told, he was afflicted with sympathy for Draco Malfoy as if he’d been cursed. It sickened him to know that he was not, after all, so interested in justice and Light, for he had placed himself between the Ministry and this one boy. And then, too, there was the fact that he could not seem to determine exactly which side Draco Malfoy had been _on_. He had not killed the Headmaster, in the end, nor had he killed Potter though he’d had numerous opportunities to do so. And since the war… well, Snape had had no compunctions about handing over Vincent Crabbe nor Gregory Goyle despite their tender ages. Both had been involved in some rather nasty post-war Muggle-baiting, and in the case of young Crabbe… something involving the Imperious Curse and a fifth year Ravenclaw girl. And yet no rumours had ever surfaced of Draco’s involvement in such things. Of course, it seemed clear, given Lovegood’s current state, that Malfoy still kept rather unsavory company, but he’d found no trace of Malfoy’s magical signature on the girl tonight, and if he _had_ been involved… no Death Eater would have brought her to help. He’d have killed her and _Reducto’d_ the remains.

At the end of one year, however, he had found no concrete evidence of anything but the fact that Draco Malfoy wore the Dark Mark, and he had reluctantly handed over the file to Lovegood.

***

As his thoughts turned back to the girl, his fingers skimmed over the bottles and jars in the cramped cabinet beside his brewing table. He plucked Essence of Jobberknoll and Veritaserum from the shelf and returned to the sitting room, where Luna Lovegood lay with a slight smile on her lips.

Snape was, in general, a bit dubious about Memory Potions, particularly when treating Obliviation, but a bit of diluted Jobberknoll blood wasn’t going to do any harm. The Veritaserum was a more difficult matter. It was unproven in treating Memory Charms, and yet, Snape felt, there was a chance that being compelled to tell the truth might force memories to the surface that were otherwise hidden. He looked between the two small bottles in his hand. Jobberknoll, he decided. And then, when she woke, perhaps…. He did not like the idea of dosing her with Veritaserum without her consent.

Provided that she was coherent enough to give consent to anything, he reminded himself fiercely, and poured a few drops of the Essence of Jobberknoll onto his waiting fingertips. Softly, he lowered his fingers to her lips, smoothing the pale purple substance into her skin. He slipped his fingers into her mouth, insinuating the potion into her gums and tongue. It felt oddly intimate, exploring the inside of the girl’s mouth this way, he thought abstractedly. Soft and smooth and warm. The thought of what she might think if she woke to find him with his fingers in her mouth had him withdrawing them quickly and wiping them hastily on his trousers.

***

“Tell me your name,” he said sharply as soon as her eyes opened.

“Luna Lovegood,” she said bemusedly, stretching upon the couch. “Who did you think I was?”

“And where do you live?”

“Just outside Ottery St Catchpole,” she replied before adding helpfully, “If you’ve forgotten the Identity Charm, sir, I’d be happy to show you—”

“Miss Lovegood, I believe you to have been Obliviated. I am simply asking questions to ascertain the level of damage you’ve sustained. Do you know how you came to arrive here?”

The girl stared off into space for a few moments, long moments in which Snape began to fear that he’d already come to the boundary of her memories. Her head settled back against the cushion, and just as he began to prepare a new question, she began to speak.

“If you are certain that I was Obliviated, I can only imagine that it happened at the Tooth and Nail.”

“The Tooth and Nail?” Snape asked incredulously.

“In Knockturn Alley,” she supplied.

“Yes, I’m well aware of where the Tooth and Nail is, Miss Lovegood. What, pray tell, were you doing there?”

“I believe I intended to spy on Draco Malfoy.”

Snape glowered down at her for what seemed an interminable time, but she would not quail, only looking back at him with a friendly, if distracted, gaze.

“I cannot imagine that what you were doing qualified as spying if you got yourself Obliviated,” Snape spat. “What possible reason could you have had to be spying on Draco Malfoy? I gave Potter all that he would need to find and convict—” Snape stopped shortly, suddenly filled with a dreadful notion. Perhaps the young woman on his couch had never trusted him at all. Perhaps his missives never made it to Potter, but were being carefully checked against some Ministry record to prove that he…

“I have Veritaserum, Miss Lovegood,” he said suddenly, “which may be of use to us in retrieving your memories. It is unconventional, to be sure, but I believe under the circumstances, it may be necessary. If action is to be taken against Draco Malfoy, we must act quickly. We cannot afford to wait for your memories to resurface on their own.”

At that, the girl looked up at him measuringly. After a time, she seemed to come to a decision. “If you think it would help things along, I would be glad to take Veritaserum, Professor Snape. Would you like to administer it, or will you trust me to dose myself?”

Snape was filled once more with the feeling that Luna Lovegood had somehow got ahead of him. “Two drops,” he said in a tone of voice meant to convey that it was _just_ possible that she might take the potion herself without causing a tragic accident.

***

“Why did you ask me to work for you?” he snapped as soon as the potion had passed her lips.

“Were you there the night that my father’s house was raided?” Luna asked, and Snape was dismayed to find that Veritaserum did not seem to encourage the girl to be any more straightforward.

He cleared his throat. “I was not.”

“Then you’ve never seen my room.”

“Your room?”

“My bedroom at home.”

“No, Miss Lovegood, I assure you that I have never seen your bedroom. However, I hardly see how that is relevant to the question at hand. Perhaps another drop of Veritaserum—”

“Oh, no, it’s working,” she said. “It feels like bubbles around my heart.”

“Then perhaps you will tell me why you demanded that I work for you.”

“I know that I’m called Loony,” she said, seemingly apropos of nothing. “I know that I’m called Loony, and I know that people laugh at me.”

Snape began to feel distinctly unsettled. The girl’s words were crisp and clear and undeniably true, but if she would not answer the question… perhaps the potion was reacting with the charm in a way he had not foreseen. Or perhaps she was making a bid for sympathy, in the hope that it might offset whatever unwelcome revelation she was about to issue. He decided to bide his time.

“When I first joined up with Harry and that lot, I…” she trailed off. “It was the work we did, do you see? The work we did that forged the bond. And for the first time, I was Luna.”

Snape had a sudden and quite unbidden memory of the first time that he’d heard his name without the echo of Snivellus behind it. He had been seventeen years old, in the Slytherin common room, teaching Avery and Mulciber to brew the Draught of the Living Death. Whatever the end of her thought was, he suddenly very much did not want to hear it.

“I don’t mind working where no one can see me,” she said, “so long as there’s someone… someone who does.”

Color began to rise in Snape’s face, and his fingers twitched in his lap, but he willed them still. Clearly this line of questioning was yielding nothing… nothing useful. “Why did you go to the Tooth and Nail?”

“I told you—to watch Draco Malfoy.”

“You thought you would spy on a _Slytherin?_ ”

Luna looked at him seriously. “Are you pretending?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You know it as well as I do, Professor. I learned it from you. You sneer and belittle everyone around you; you never listen—”

“While I thank you for that charming summation of my character, Miss Lovegood, I must insist—”

“—until no one wants to be around you. No one pays any attention to what you’re doing.”

Snape waved his hand as if he could quiet her. “I should never have agreed to this ridiculous arrangement.”

“Why do you think I let them push me into the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures? Because no one pays any mind to barmy old Loony Lovegood. Let her hunt for the Crumple Horned Snorkack. No one _sees_ me.”

“But what caused you spy on Malfoy?” Snape sputtered.

“Because you couldn’t.”

Snape was stunned into silence for nearly a full minute. “I fail to follow your rather dubious logic,” he said, regaining himself. “I gave you all the information that I had on Draco Malfoy. I held nothing back. What more could you have needed?”

“Yes, you gave me all I would need. He was exactly where you said that he would be.”

“But you felt it necessary to verify my information? How often has that been the case? Why do you pretend at seeking my help if you would prefer to investigate yourself?”

“Because you didn’t believe it! You didn’t believe that Malfoy was guilty!”

“If I harbored any reservations about Malfoy, they have been dispelled by the events of this evening,” Snape said shortly, turning away from her.

“But don’t you see? This evening proves it. He’s no Death Eater. He brought me to you.”

“So you believe that he is not a Death Eater because he failed to leave you unconscious in the Tooth and Nail—”

“To be disposed of? Yes, I do. So I suppose that whatever happened, I got what I came for.”

“Which was?”

“Enough to convince you that we can destroy that file.”

Snape stared at her levelly. “You wish to destroy a file on a known Death Eater?”

“With all due respect, sir, you are a known Death Eater. And I’m alone in your home and under the influence of Veritaserum.”

Snape bared his teeth slightly and rose to his feet. “Your point, Miss Lovegood?”

“That not everything is only what it seems to be.”

Snape stood quietly, looking at Luna Lovegood who seemed perfectly at ease under his scrutiny, lying on his couch in the wee hours of the morning. Why did her words seem always to dance just outside his reach, like a pale bird that darted away as soon as he approached?

“Why do you pursue the Death Eaters?” he said at last.

“Because you shouldn’t have to stay here if you don’t want to.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s all right to fear them. I do. And you protected me, back in my sixth year, when I was afraid. You kept them from hurting us.”

“Are you telling me that this has all been some misguided attempt—Miss Lovegood, I do not _fear anyone_!” Snape thundered, but Luna went on as if she had not been interrupted.

“I was afraid of you, too, at first. I couldn’t eat before I Floo called you. But now—” For the first time, Luna faltered. Snape stood motionless, frozen.

“Now I look forward to seeing you.”

“I fail to understand where all this is leading. You claim you wish to incarcerate the Death Eaters so that I might enjoy freedom, yet you do not pass along the information I give you necessary to their capture! You—”

“Sir—Professor—Severus,” she said. “Draco Malfoy brought me here, which means he knew where to find you. How could I turn in someone you trust?”

Snape sank back into his chair and lowered his head into his hands. He was beyond frustration at the twist and turns of this conversation, her thoughts always eluding him, dragging him off the beaten paths into thickets and dense undergrowth. Why was she so calm when he felt so flustered? Why did he feel as though this would all make perfect sense if only he could ask the right question?

“I assume,” he said from between his hands, “that you have not had this house under surveillance.”

He glanced up at her briefly, to see her shaking her head no. And yet there was a look of encouragement in her eyes that he could not fathom.

“Then how did you know that I trusted Draco Malfoy?”

“Because you gave me his file last. Because your notes on him were all bungled—nothing like the precision of the others. Because… because—really, you’re a terrible listener—I _see_ you.”

She rose and stood unsteadily before him, her hair a trifle matted where it had pressed against the arm of the couch. Snape stepped back involuntarily. He was unaccustomed to having anyone so close to him—in fact, he could not think when the last time had been that someone stood close enough to him to touch him. Heat burned his neck and tingled in the scar on his throat. She stepped closer to him once more, taking hold of his arm to keep herself steady, her silvery eyes tipped up toward him.

“It’s not so hard, really.”

Suddenly, Snape thought that he might know, after all, what the missing piece to the argument had been. He cleared his throat uncomfortably, and felt his blush rise up past his ears. He twitched his head, bringing his hair forward over one eye.

“I knew you’d get there in the end,” she said happily.

Snape found himself trapped between the wall and Luna Lovegood, her hands wrapped firmly around his biceps. Her lips tasted faintly of Essence of Jobberknoll and something warm and particular to her—perhaps the taste of someone who had taken it upon herself—someone who had bothered—someone who was kissing him, here in his sitting room…

“But… Miss… Luna,” he finally managed. “If Draco Malfoy was not responsible for Obliviating you, who was?”

“I have no idea,” she replied vaguely, rising back up onto her toes. “But I think I’d better stay here until I can remember.”

Snape looked hard at the girl before him. A distant part of his mind piped up that all of this was surely the result of a reaction between the Jobberknoll and Veritaserum, combined with head trauma… And yet, it seemed to him that now that he’d fallen in step with her thoughts, he could not step back, could not un-see, and her small, upturned face looked at him without reproach or demand, only waiting, hoping to be kissed.

“Indeed,” he said before he obliged her.


End file.
